Oh, it's out there, lurking in the shadows. It can be wielded with supreme power, either responsibly or not. Some wield it to right a wrong, some wield it out of knee-jerk reactions, others to protect their private interests. Ladies and gentlemen: The Banhammer.

I do not direct this post at any of the moderators on this site, though I'd certainly welcome their feedback on the issue I'm about to address. This post has nothing to do with the myriads of trolls here on MyIGN. This post is instead directed at the practice of bringing the mighty Banhammer down upon those in the majestic and addictive escapism that is MMORPGs. This post is about my dear friend MS, and how last week he became one the latest victims of a permanent ban from Guild Wars 2.

MS, whose name I am protecting for obvious reasons, was until recently the most likely mega-fan of both Guild Wars 2 and AreanNet on the planet. Like, seriously get a life MS. He actually has a glorious life. He's got a great job, he's married and he has an adorable little girl. But that's not the point! MS began his obsession with Guild Wars 2 as soon as it was announced 5ish years ago. All my friends and I would hear about during our weekly online gaming sessions was how awesome Guild Wars 2 would be and how it would trump every other game ever made or ever will be made (at least until Guild Wars 3 comes out). So ardent was his passion for GW2 that MS would go to PAX every year just to chat with the ArenaNet guys and gals, play GW2 endlessly, and then come back to tell all his friends how awesome it is. It actually is a pretty great game, but I digress.

MS can be quite the troll in the online world of gaming. He's the kind of player that will talk constant shit about you if you play like shit, will rip you apart in the chat windows if you're being a dick, and he LOVES pwning noobs. But he would never resort to racist barbs, sexist or misogynistic bullshit, or even homophobic slurs. Not intentionally at least.

Being a troll is not why ArenaNet brought the Banhammer down upon him. MS was perma-banned for exploiting a loophole in GW2's crafting system.

GW2 has frequent holidays and special events about once a month in order to help keep things fresh and to make sure the long-term players don't get too bored with the usual content. These holidays usually include rare items only found during that specific holiday. During one of these holidays, MS was clued in to a specific rare crafting recipe that could easily be exploited to yield substantially better results than what was originally designed due to a glitch in the way the the the recipe was programmed. I'm not going to go into details because I actually do wish to continue my GW2 experience. Anyhow, the crafting results could then be traded in the in-game market for profit, thus potentially effing up the meticulously designed in-game economy. ArenaNet found the glitch in the crafting recipe and fixed it promptly. In the meantime, ArenaNet also somehow flagged several hundred players for this offense, including mega-fan MS, and last week apparently perma-banned every single one of them.

So here's where things get murky: On the one hand I totally understand and support why ArenaNet did this. Part of the in-game economy involves items that can be purchased with real currency through Gem Cards that you can buy at Gamestop, Best Buy, etc. If I were ArenaNet and I saw that players were finding ways to exploit the in-game economy of one of my games, I would be legitimately concerned and try to put a stop to it as quickly as possible. This is an issue that also affects the livelihoods of the employees at my company and I would want to do whatever I can to protect them. That means banning anyone who would in any way maliciously exploit the in-game economy or other aspects of my game. On the other hand, should the people whose only offense was to take advantage of the crafting loophole be so severely punished for exploiting of a mere programming flaw? This is where I hesitate, as it seems (from my perspective at least) that ArenaNet is perhaps being far too over-reactive in their use of the Banhammer.

ArenaNet seems to have an absolute zero tolerance when it comes to exploiting their games regardless of intent, specifically Guild Wars 2. Not only was MS perma-banned, but all the money that he spent on Gem Cards since GW2 came out was completely refunded to him. No one is responding to his emails that attempt to explain the situation. They are washing their hands of him entirely.

So what do you guys and gals out in MyIGN-land think about this sad tale? Did MS deserve the perma-ban? Was ArenaNet over-reactive or well within their right to protect their interests?